Uni Life...Part Three

The final part in this trilogy of my uni life, onwards to Year 3!

The year began with the renaming of Southampton Institute as we became the Southampton Solent University. Celebrity How Too guy/news reporter Fred Dineage was on hand to officially open the uni and after that we headed to the union. The entertainment came from "The Queens", a Queen tribute band and in all my years here I have never witnessed an atmosphere in the union like there was that night. Brilliant opening to the year!

Year 3 was mainly focused on the dissertation/major project and despite numerous comments by Roopa that described writing a script as a dissertation as "mickey mouse" I ploughed on with a 10,000 word theatre script about the end of World War Two.

It stated out as a small idea during last summer but once I realised how much research would be needed, I set out in September to come down to uni to get a good start (and so no-one else nicked the books!). I had weekly meetings with my tutor Seamus who helped immensly with the project, and also put on special weekly workshops so that we could read out each others scripts and see where we were going right/wrong.

Due to the dissertation needing only a once or twice weekly contact with tutors, we had plenty of free time to either work on the other units of the course but the research for the other units was hectic as well!

Due to a lot of free time, we felt the need to discuss our projects thoroughly at Wetherspoons at their many great offer nights. Burger night, Curry night (The Chilli-Chutney Challenge) and Steak night were all attended during the year and Jamie's comical attempts at ordering for 6 people including the different side orders was a weekly highlight.

We also discovered the pub quiz at the Cricketers on Bedford Place which we regularly attended and regularly did badly at, including one last place finish in which we won some Pork Scratchings for being so rubbish!

In other news, Dave announced his engagement to Marti and they set a date for September (I won't publish the actual date in case the paparazi are snopping around this site). Great news that was, and I look forward to the wedding even if I had to pay for my own invite to be posted!

Dave also had his surprise 21st birthday party at Soul Cellar which was indeed a surprise to him as he had thrown Marti a surprise party of her own the night before! Jamie turned 21 in January and made a commemorative Beer Hat for the occasion. It inevitably ended in Flares...that's the bar, "Flares", I don't mean that the beer hat was thrown down the trousers of a 70's throwback.

And then it all came slowly to an end. We visited Cardiff for a pretty pointless career day that told us we didn't really need a degree (well we knew that from Rick anyway) and it seems to get anywhere in tv in Wales you MUST speak Welsh. Either that or be a distant relative of Tom Jones.

Our final words of wisdom came from, who else, but Rick Hudson. In the last ever uni seminar, Rick said his final words to us..."It doesn't matter who likes or doesn't like your work, if your aunty hates it, who cares?....Fuck your auntie and let's call it quits"

Superb Rick...superb! He also gave us a quick "Brrrr" and he was away into the night.

We completed our dissertations and handed them in on May 3rd 2006 before heading straight to the union. The following night the course held it's end of year party in The Old Fat Cat (the home of Media Writing) and then the summer ball rounded it all off.

And so it's all over and tomorrow we will find out what these 3 years have brought us in terms of a grade. I'm absolutely crapping myself to put it lightly. 3 years of painful 9am lectures, spending 6 hours in the same room, staying up late to finish assignments. But you know what, for every painful memory, I've gained a million and one more superb memories and if anyone at all is reading this and wondering whether to go to uni or not, I can't put into words how great it is and what you'll take out of it.

So good luck to everyone at the Solent University tomorrow getting their results.


BONUS! THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF RICK HUDSON!

So this will only make sense if you were on our course but the lessons are there for all to learn. The top ten commandments from Rick...

1. Thou Shalt Bosh it out.

2. Thou's first draft is always shit.

3. Thou shalt fuck all that shit.

4. Writing is a stupid job for thou.

5. What is the point? Who cares?

6. Is this all just a load of bollocks?

7. If thou does not like it...thou shalt sod off.

8. Who wants to write short stories? Why? What's the point?

9. "Brrrrr..."

10. Thou shalt fuck you auntie and call it quits.